“Are you sure?” Glyndon gathers the cards, her tone awkward. “He didn’t tell me beforehand, so I couldn’t even change into appropriate clothes.”
“What’s wrong with your current clothes?” I steal a switch card, because no, I’m definitely not letting them win anytime soon.
“You don’t get opinion rights.” She makes a face, then grabs my hand, reaches under my sleeve, and snatches back the card I stole. “And no cheating. Seriously, can’t you take a chill pill?”
“I do, when I’m fucking your brains out. Wanna go to the bathroom?”
“Too much information,” Gareth says.
“You can always leave, and go back to your nerdy activities.”
“No and no, and did I mention no?” Glyndon says in a mocking voice even though her neck is red. “Now, let’s play.”
Gareth manages to win once, only because Glyndon actually searched my pants for the stolen cards.
To say she’s become bold is an understatement. And it’s definitely not because I’m taking it easy on her.
She’s just growing more into herself and into this wrecking force that’s coming after my life.
By the time we prepare to land, she manages to win and rubs it in our faces and gloats until we think she’ll do it till kingdom come.
“Feels good to be a winner.” She fastens her seatbelt at the flight attendant’s call.
I tighten it further around her waist. “You actually won the least between the three of us and only because you stole more cards than we could.”
“I’m sorry, what? I can’t hear you over the victory fireworks in my head.”
I chuckle, shaking my head. “Stop being adorable before I fuck you right here, right now.”
“Don’t do that,” she whisper-yells. “Ugh. I can’t stop remembering that many airplane crashes happened while trying to land.”
“Then I guess you should hold my hand, hmm?” I offer her my palm and she takes it, threading her fingers through mine and tucking it in her lap.
Full-blown satisfaction fills my system at the thought of being her anchor.
It isn’t some Prince Charming, a boring type, or another man.
Me.
The feeling of complete euphoria slowly dulls down with the reminder of where we’re going.
Fucking home.
* * *
It’sstrange how the mind categorizes events and shoves them into boxes of archives. Some are forgotten after a day or a week.
Others stay there forever. In fact, they slip into subconsciousness and make sure they’re never forgotten.
My family home on the outskirts of New York City is a modern mansion that could tick the dream house checklist of most Americans. It even has the white fence cliché my mother probably dreamt of when she was young.
It’s huge, personalized to the smallest detail, and fit to be the home of Asher and Reina Carson. As in, the American king and queen who instantly become the talk of every media outlet the moment they’re in public.
In this house, I’ve had everything people would consider happy memories. A loving mother, a present father—more than need be—birthday parties, running around like headless chickens with Gareth, Nikolai, Mia, and Maya.
And my awakening by hunting and killing those mice.
People tend to romanticize the past, I don’t. Because those memories? They’re nothing more than yellowed pages in an old forgotten book.